Thursday, April 21, 2011

Take a gander at what uniformed federal agents will be delivering to your home in the coming days! The summer issue of Reston: The Magazine is out, and it's chock full of light-hearted summer reading. Be sure to toss it into your beach bag when you head to the oceanThe Water Mine your nearest RA pool.

At first, we were a bit worried about quality control at the Reston: The Magazine headquarters, as the word "DEAP" is prominently splayed across the cover. Turns out it's something about a "drowning education awareness program," which posits the radical idea that drowning is... bad?

Then an exciting column by the police spares us the trouble of finding a dictionary by defining what a bicycle is. If you said it is a "device propelled solely by human power, upon which a person may ride either on or astride a regular seat attached thereto, having two or more wheels in tandem, including children’s bicycles, except a toy vehicle intended for use by young children," then congratulations. You somehow managed to memorize Chapter 8 (§ 46.2-800 et seq.) of Virginia law, which will make you tons of fun at parties.

But that's not all! There's barbecue safety tips! And a program to learn how to make your own barrel to catch radioactive rain water! And an exciting opportunity to adopt a recycling bin! (Though frankly, we're waiting for the chance to adopt a fanciful concrete bollard.)

Like all great periodicals (The Economist and Soap Opera Digest come quickly to mind), Reston: The Magazine also has its share of what those of us in the business call "think pieces." Here's what Bob Simon had to say about community, and density, and how each feeds off the other:

One obvious characteristic of community is the greater the density the greater opportunity there is for community.... For the future, Reston will no doubt, with the advent of rail and beyond, find itself absorbing its share of the region’s population increase. If well planned for, the increase will reinforce the strength of its community without disturbing the quality of living in the vast majority of its neighborhoods. This can occur if the bulk of the population increase is directed, as it should be, to Town Center, the village centers and the metro station areas.

That's pretty heavy. If only there was something a bit lighter to serve as a mental palette cleanser, so to speak: